Sought...Book 3 in the Brides of the Kindred series (34 page)

Soulless,
Xairn thought.
That’s
what Lauren thinks of them. Maybe they are. Maybe the vat grown are
devoid of real consciousness. Or else they hide their emotions even
better than I do.

Of course, up until a few hours before, he
hadn’t had any emotions to hide. Now he was full of them—some old,
hatred for his father, despair for his joyless life—but some new as
well. When he remembered how Lauren had looked, naked and defiant
as she offered herself to him, feelings stirred inside him which
didn’t bear thinking about.

If Father finds out I have feelings again,
that he can feed on me… Have to get away from him. Get away and
stay away as much as possible.

It was his only thought as he watched the
AllFather descend from the ship, aided by his Alpha guard. He still
seemed stiff and weak but the moment he stepped foot on the ground,
he lifted his hooded face and took a deep breath of the dank, fetid
air. “Home at lassst.” The words hissed from his lipless mouth and
he turned glowing red-on-black eyes to Xairn. “Sssee to the girl.
Do not bother me unlesss I sssend for you.”

“Yes, Father.” Xairn nodded briefly and was
relieved when the AllFather turned to go.

“Xairn.”

He jerked as his father hissed his name.
“Yes?”

“The control wand. Give it to me.” One
skeletal hand emerged from the shadowy depths of the AllFather’s
robe, palm up. “Just in case you get any ideasss.”

Struggling to maintain a blank expression,
Xairn did as he was told. Pulling the tiny silver control wand from
the instrument panel, he dropped it into his father’s hand. Without
it the ship could not be started or steered—without it, he was
stuck on this planet with no choice but to do his father’s will.
Of course I’m going to do his will. What else would I do? Take
Lauren and fly away with her?
Xairn shook his head. Just the
fact that he’d even
had
such a thought proved that he was
becoming more and more unstable.

The Allfather’s burning crimson eyes
narrowed. “Are you well, my ssson?”

“Perfectly, Father.” Xairn stared straight
ahead. “Hadn’t you better get to your
Souda?”

“I ssshall indeed. And I will keep thisss
with me at all timesss.” The silver control wand disappeared into
the folds of the AllFather’s shadowy robes. Then, surrounded by his
four huge guards, he glided away.

Xairn gave them plenty of time to enter the
Complex, watching as the massive plasti-steel doors rolled inward
silently and then shut behind them. When he was sure they were
gone, he sighed in relief. At least now that his father was out of
the immediate vicinity, he could stop worrying about the AllFather
sensing the new emotions churning in his gut.

Emotions he could neither defend nor
deny—and all of them centered on Lauren.

Deep was suspiciously quiet during their
flight to the Scourge home world. He barely spoke except to warn
Kat to be sure she was buckled in safely when they went through the
deep red fold in space. And since Lock was too sunk in misery to
say anything and Kat wasn’t feeling too chatty herself, their
journey was mostly silent. She still had the nagging feeling that
there was something she ought to know or remember and every time
she glanced at Deep, it grew stronger. But whatever it was, it
stayed in the back of her mind and refused to come forward.

At last Deep broke the silence as he piloted
the ship into the smoggy atmosphere of the gray-green planet. “Here
we are—
Zlicth.”

“What?” Kat asked, as the oily black ocean
whizzed by under their ship. “What’s a zlickt?”

“
Zlicth,
is the name of this planet
in the ancient tongue of the Scourge,” Lock explained as the ship
left the water behind and landed on a brown beach. “The same way
you call your planet ‘Earth.’”

Oh,” Kat said as they all unsnapped their
safety harnesses. “But if this is their home world, why did they
abandon it?”

“Take a look outside and you’ll see.” Deep
pressed a button and the door of the shuttle slid smoothly
open.

Kat stepped out onto the metal steps
descending from the small silver craft to survey the planet.
Standing on the topmost step, she looked out across a beach of
grimy brown and gray sand and put a hand to her nose. “Ugh, what’s
that smell?” It was like a combination of car exhaust, sulfur, and
a cat box that badly needed to be changed.

“The sweet smell of
Zlicth
, of
course,” Deep said with a touch of his old sarcasm. He came to
stand behind her. “The Scourge weren’t terribly particular about
the welfare of their planet, as long as there was a profit to be
turned.”

“They ruined their world for gain,” Lock
explained. “This planet contains vast quantities of
verinium—
which gives tremendous amounts of energy when
burned.”

“But also releases noxious fumes into the
air and chemicals into the water,” Deep said, nodding at the oily
waves lapping at the brown sand. There was a thin grayish scum on
the water that looked toxic.

“It’s disgusting,” Kat said, still holding a
hand over her nose. “I mean—oh!” Her foot slipped and she started
to fall from the steps. Only Deep’s strong hand under her arm saved
her. He pulled her back to her feet and gave her a quick shake.

“Try not to injure yourself while we’re
here—all right, sweetheart?”

Kat stiffened and lifted her chin. “What do
you care what happens to me? You just want to be free of me,
right?”

Deep’s black eyes flashed. “Just because I
don’t want to be bonded to you doesn’t mean I don’t care if
you—”

“If I kill myself?” Kat finished for him,
without thinking. To her surprise, instead of snapping out a
sarcastic retort, Deep turned pale.

“Don’t say that.” His voice was low and
hoarse and for a moment, his eyes looked almost haunted.

“Why not?” Kat stared at him, again having
that niggling feeling that there was something important she ought
to remember.

But Deep only shook his head, and the moment
passed. “This may be a deserted world but there are still plenty of
dangerous things lying around—the Scourge weren’t very careful
where they left their toys.”

“Deep is right,” Lock said, unexpectedly
agreeing with his brother. “This is a dangerous place. Which is why
we should leave and go back to the Mother ship right now.”

“Nice try, Brother,” Deep drawled. “But I
don’t think so—we’re going to do what we came here to do. Besides,
don’t you have another little job while we’re here?”

Lock frowned. “Olivia
did
ask me to
see if I could find any clues to her cousin’s whereabouts. Although
what we can find on a planet that’s been abandoned for fifty
cycles, I have no idea.”

“The prophesy,” Kat reminded him, walking
carefully down the steps to the greasy sand below. “If we can find
out the exact wording we might have a clue as to what they want her
for and where they’ve taken her.”

“Possibly,” Deep agreed, his boots crunching
on the sand. “Although I think we all know what they want her
for.”

Kat frowned at him. “What do you mean by
that?”

Deep shrugged. “What does any Scourge want
with a female?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know but I take
it they’re not interested in romantic candlelight dinners and long
walks on the beach. Especially not
this
beach.” She made a
face.

“They’re depraved in every way,” Lock said,
stepping down to join them on the sand. “It’s one of the reasons
many of our forefathers wanted to block the genetic trade with
them.”

“Hold on.” Kat put up a hand. “You’re
telling me the Kindred actually made a trade with them? With the
Scourge?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Deep nodded. “A small
faction of Kindred, anyway.”

“It was only about a hundred and fifty
cycles ago that we came across them,” Lock explained as they began
to walk up the beach. “We observed them first, of course. They had
the physical characteristics and DNA to make a genetic exchange
possible. But the majority of the Council was against the trade
from the start.”

“Why?” Kat asked, fascinated despite
herself. Who could have guessed that the Kindred’s greatest enemy
had at one time been an ally?

“The things they had done to their world for
one thing.” Lock gestured at the dirty beach and oily black water.
“To so pollute and ruin a planet showed a blatant disregard for the
blessings the Mother of All Life had bestowed on them in the first
place. But more importantly, the forefathers didn’t like the way
the Scourge treated their females.”

Kat’s breath seemed to catch in her throat.
“How…how did they treat them?”

“They’re sexual sadists.” Deep’s black
eyebrows were pulled low, his face like a thundercloud. “They enjoy
inflicting pain and they demand complete submission at all
times.”

Kat raised an eyebrow. “So the whole planet
was into BDSM? Kinky.”

“Not just ‘kinky’—depraved,” Lock corrected
her sternly.

“Lock’s right.” Deep nodded. “I’ve seen vids
about your sexual practices on Earth—I know a few of your people
are into games of sexual control. But it’s no game for the
Scourge—it’s a dominant gene, hardwired into the genetic makeup of
every Scourge male. Dominance and submission isn’t play to
them—it’s life or death.”

“They can’t take a female unless they’re
dominating her completely,” Lock said quietly.

“And they practice and enjoy forms of sexual
torture that would turn your stomach,” Deep said darkly. “The
Goddess help that girl if the Scourge really do have her. I don’t
like to think of the torment they must be putting her through.”

“Poor Lauren!” Kat suddenly felt for Liv and
Sophie’s cousin as she never had before. Before she’d been
sympathetic to her plight and worried about her, but now she felt
Lauren’s pain like a fist to the gut. Lock and Deep’s words brought
home what the kidnapped girl must be enduring in a visceral way
that nothing else had. “I don’t understand, though,” she said. “If
the Scourge are so horrible, why did the Kindred trade with
them?”

“A small faction disagreed with the ruling
of the Council,” Lock explained. “The Scourge were the first new
species suitable for a trade that we’d seen in hundreds of years.
And they argued that the Kindred genes were dominant—a new
generation of Scourge could be raised who had no wish to torment or
inflict pain. Who loved and revered females, as we do.”

“They pointed out that the savages from
Rageron had been tamed and taught to worship the Goddess,” Deep
said. “But the Beast Kindred never had the genetic need to dominate
that the Scourge do. It turned out to be impossible to breed that
out of them.”

“So what happened? How did you guys become
mortal enemies?” Kat asked. “Was it because they wouldn’t stop
mistreating their women?”

“Their continued sexual practices led to a
lot of friction, yes,” Lock said. “But it wasn’t until it became
common knowledge that the Scourge were experimenting on and
torturing abducted Kindred warriors and their brides that all-out
war broke out between us.”

Kat made a face. “But why would they do
something so horrible?”

“They claimed that they were looking for the
connection between the Kindred and their mates—the connection they
themselves seemed to be lacking,” Deep rumbled. “But nobody really
believed that—what they were doing was all about revenge.”

“Revenge?”

Lock nodded. “You see, from the genetic
trade, the Scourge got the Kindred size and musculature and prowess
in battle but they also inherited our greatest weakness.”

“Our inability to breed females,” Deep
clarified. “With our people, only five percent of pregnancies
result in female children. But in the Scourge, the trait was worse.
Only one fifth of one percent of their pregnancies resulted in
girls.”

“They hated us for it—they still do,” Lock
said. “They blame us for the decimation of their race.”

Deep made a sound of disgust in his throat.
“They had something to do with it too—right here in fact. During
the Battle of Berrni. You can see the results.”

They were climbing a ridge that ran along
the top of the greasy brown dunes as he spoke. What she saw when
they made it to the top, took Kat’s breath away.

There, on a vast field of barren gray dirt,
lay the wreckage and remains of hundreds of space ships. Some of
them looked a little like the shuttle they had come in and she
assumed they must be of Kindred design. Others were completely
alien with strange, gleaming black skin that her eyes kept wanting
to slide away from—apparently Scourge ships.

“This is the Field of Berrni—it was the
final testing ground,” Lock said quietly, gesturing to the wrecked
and abandoned ships. “We had broken into their medical complex and
rescued the prisoners they had taken and we were about to wipe them
out completely. In desperation, the Scourge deployed a viral bomb
designed specifically to cause spontaneous combustion in anyone
with Kindred DNA.”

Kat put a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God—so
they burned them alive?”

Deep nodded. “Look in any of these abandoned
ships and you’ll see little piles of black ash—all that remains of
the pilots.”

“But the Scourge didn’t count on one
thing—they themselves had Kindred DNA,” Lock said. “They thought
that they had modified their virus enough so that it wouldn’t
affect them—but our dominant genes are incredibly strong. The
survivors of the battle escaped aboard the Father ship but not
wholly intact.”

“It sterilized them,” Deep explained. “All
but a few who were completely shielded from the initial blast.” He
looked grim. “We think the AllFather was one of them.”

“So he might be looking for a way to
replenish his race?” Kat guessed. “Do you think that’s what he
wants Lauren for?”